Learning is Fun! Weekly Post

I'm a day late!

Here is how last week went:
(By the way, age attempted is 18  months)

1.) Stacking Blocks:  I actually have misplaced them at the moment, but she did play with them several times and really liked them.  She can stack 3 blocks.  
2.) Sidewalk Chalk: Mommy fail
3.) Color with red, blue, and yellow crayons:  We only did this once and she kept eating them which was really driving me crazy!  She is sooo much better about putting stuff in her mouth when I say no.  I guess we better try this again.
4.) Learn to point to eyebrow: I thought she would have some trouble with this, but she learned it in about 10 minutes!  It's so unpredictable what she will understand and what she won't.  I have been trying to teach her "chin" for weeks and she still just looks at me or sometimes points to her mouth or nose!  But, eyebrow?  No problem! Maybe it's because she already knew "eye"?
5.) Learn how to sign the word "dad":  Mmmm, kind of.  She knows how to sign mom and dad is very similar so she sometimes signs mom instead of dad, but I think she will distinguish them easily if I keep working on it with her.
6.) Clothespins in a bottle:  Mommy fail :(  I have the bottle ready to go-I just have to cut a hole in the side of it.  We will definitely get to do this before next Monday!
7.) Pumpkin Patch: My friend's schedule didn't work out so we are supposed to go this Thursday.
8.) Stained glass leaves:  We made these, but unfortunately, Baby Girl couldn't do as much as I was hoping.  I wanted her to tear up the tissue paper and she did for about 2 minutes and then got bored.  She did help me stick the tissue paper on the glue...for about one minute :)  Oh well, maybe we'll try again next year!
9.) Read: of course, we do this every day.  I'm not even going to put it on the list anymore.

Additional Activities that we did:

10.) Made this:

11.) We painted pumpkins

So, we did 6 out of 9 activities.  67% success rate.  Not very good :(  Bummer.  However, if you add in the 2 additional activities we have a 88% success rate.  Ok, enough math.  We'll do better next week!  Speaking of next week, here's what we have planned:

1.) Practice climbing down stairs
2.) Sidewalk Chalk!!
3.) Color again with red, blue, yellow crayons
4.) Learn where her "bottom" is
5.) Keep practicing "dad" and learn how to sign "help"
6.) Drop clothespin in a 2-liter bottle
7.) Pumpkin Patch
8.) Dance to some music!

Learning is Fun! Weekly post

One thing that I do with Autumn and love love love to do is to play constructively with her.  What I mean is I get ideas from other blogs about learning and education and then do something with her other than just reading or letting her entertain herself.  My goal is to do these activities several times a week, plus do one artsy/crafty thing a week with her.  She is young (17.5 months) so some of these things are very simple.  For example, one day we might work on "kicking" a ball (which she still can't do!) or taking a homemade streamer outside and talking about wind.  Some are more complicated such as transfering cereal with a spoon from one bowl to another.  I would also love to have a themed book focus for each week, but that's not happening yet. 

So, why am I writing about this?  Well, because some days (weeks) I do better than others and I thought it might help keep me accountable if I have a weekly post about our "goals".  I am thinking I can go over the previous's weeks activities and how they went and also write down the next week's planned activities.

SO, for the upcoming week our goals are to:
-Have lots of practice playing with and stacking blocks
-Experiment with sidewalk chalk
-Color with Red, Blue, Yellow Crayons
-Learn to point to the body part "eyebrow" :)  (hee hee she may not be able to get this one)
-Learn how to sign the word "dad"
-Drop clothespins into a 2 liter bottle (fine motor skill maybe?  I don't know, I just saw the idea somewhere)
 -Go to a Pumpkin Patch (this may or may not happen depending on my friend's availability)
-Make stained glass leaves, found here.
-Read, read, read (which is a given and we do every day whether I want to or not! (My child is a bookaholic!)

That's not too much, is it?  Some of those are really easy and will only take minutes to do.  Plus, I don't work and I only have one child (for now) so I have lots of time to play with her!

I need to figure out what to call these weekly postings.  Playtime with the beast?  No! Just kidding.  Ummm, learning is fun?  I feel like I've heard that somewhere before, but surely it's not copyrighted so we'll go with that for now I guess.  I guess I'll update on Mondays how the previous week went.   Who's excited?  Me!  :)

A photo I made from Picnik.com!

GMG Week One

Wow!  Time just keeps on truckin'.  Hubby has been gone for 2.5 months!  Some days go slow, but most have gone by pretty fast.  I guess I can thank my toddler for that ;)  She keeps me busy, but oh what JOY she brings to everyone around her.  I mean, how can you not love this face???

Anyhoo, onto bible stuff!  I joined an online bible study.  Maybe you've heard of it?  It's called "Good Morning Girls" and it's all about getting up early in the morning (I got up at 6:20am today-big deal for me!) and spending time in God's Word.  I have only done 3 days, but I love it!   This week we only read one verse a day and so you have lots of time to think about it or look up the Greek words or anything that like.    Today they are having a link-up party.  Here's their website:  www.goodmorninggirls.org  They have a button too, but since they don't have the code I surely don't know how to paste it!  I can probably figure it out later.  Today we are just supposed to blog about what we are learning (in the 3 verses we read!).

The main thing God revealed to me this week was the way John keeps using the word "Proclaim" (I'm reading the NIV).  The Greek word (apaggello) means "make known openly, declare" according to www.blueletterbible.org.  So I have been thinking about what I declare not with my mouth, but with my life.  I found that I represent 3 things with my actions in this order:  1.) I am a mommy  2.) I am a Christian 3.) I am a wife.   Don't get me wrong, those are 3 wonderful things to be and I love being all those things, but did you notice what order they are in?  They are completely whacked!  It's supposed to go:  Christian, Wife, Mommy...right?  Well, that's what I believe anyway.  

When people look at me, they see mommy for sure.  I am pregnant first of all, but I am also very mommy-ish with Baby Girl.  We "talk" to each other in the grocery store.  I just chat her up like she's an adult "Do you think this is enough yogurt, sweetie?"  No response of course.  "Yeah, you're right we need more".  I also post pictures on FB of crafts we do or things she says.  I mean, my life right now screams "Mommy".  Then I'm a Christian.  I talk about going to church or getting up early to read my Bible or on FB I'll put as my status "Off to bible study! So glad I found these girls!".  You know, things like that.  Lastly, I'm a wife.  I don't often put things up about Hubby because I worry that people will think I feel sorry for myself or wanting attention.  I don't even tell most new people I meet that he is deployed because you always get that sad look from people and then they inevitably say "Oh, I don't know how you do it" or "that must be really hard" or "I admire you".  I know they mean well, but I am still a normal person!  If you tell me your husband is a doctor, I don't stick out my sad lip and say "Oh, I bet it is really hard being a doctor's wife".  I say "Oh, that's cool.  What kind of doctor?" 

OKAAAY, off my tangent!  Sorry about that.  Back to the point of this post, my life is out of order.  I am not sure that it matters what people see exactly, but it does matter how I see myself and how I live my life and really want to put God first, Hubby second, and kiddos third.  Which means when Hubby calls, I make time to talk to him.  If that means I put Baby Girl in front of the TV for 20  mins, then I just need to suck it up and do it.  That means that I pray to God before anything else when things arise during my day.  That means if Baby Girl keeps me up at night, I still get up and give God part of my day.  Changes, I tell you! Changes!  :)

Ok, guess who's awake now??  Hint: She's tiny and she's gorgeous!  Haha, I was about done anyway.  Great morning in the Word and it's going to be a great day!

Toddler Summary-16.5 months

I realize it would be better to have a 16 month summary or a 17 month summary, but it's September the 3rd and I feel like doing it now.  So there.  :)


Eating
She is still a fruit head and a carb head.  I have started giving her smoothies sometimes for breakfast and she loooooves them.  She still doesn't eat much meat.  She won't eat my awesome, handbreaded chicken nuggets but she will eat Chick-fil-A's!  Hmph.  She also won't eat my sweet potato fries.  Hmph.  Toddlers are picky! 


Sleeping
She was sleeping 8-8 until about 3 days ago when she started waking up from more teeth coming in (I think)!  She finally dropped a nap so she's down to one a day.  I thought that would be a drag, but it's made my life easier not having to get all my errands and playdates over and done with in an hour or two.  So now she naps from noon-ish to two-ish and all is well :)


Teething
Her 1st molars finally came in and she was sleeping really well again until 3 days ago as I previously wrote.  No new teeth have broken the surface yet but I assume it is her canine's since they are supposed to come next and she's been pretty textbook so far.  I also must admit that at first I wrote K-9's, but at least I knew something looked wrong!


Playtime/Reading
She is really getting into her chunky puzzles.  I don't know when babies are supposed to learn colors, but she so does not get the concept!  She tries to put the red triangle into any of the holes, etc.  She loves to color with markers.  Crayons are ok, but markers are her favorite.  She is also starting to listen and sit still to an entire (short) book which is so fun for me!  We read A LOT.  The chick is a reader.  I don't know how many books we read a day-I should keep track just to see sometime.  She also likes going outside (but what kid doesn't, really?) and loves to play in the water.  I have started showing her bugs and butterflies and she thinks they are pretty cool.  She loves that game where you say "I'm going to get you" and chase her around the house! It is so fun!


Other

She is learning how to climb down stairs.  She climbs up really well.  She is starting to "talk" a lot and she knows a lot of words.  She is also starting to say 2-syllable words and phrases (apple, all gone, color).  Her hair is super super curly and stays out of control! So I have started putting it in pigtails which makes it much more manageable for mommy :) 

Cutie pie in her pigtails :)

Mmmmm, can't think of anything else to say! Have a great Sunday tomorrow!